Authors:

Stefania Scarsoglio(Politecnico di Torino)

Francesca De Santi(Politecnico di Torino)

Daniela Tordella(Politecnico di Torino)

The way in which the kinetic energy is distributed over the
multiplicity of scales is a fundamental feature of turbulence.
According to Kolmogorov's 1941 theory, by dimensional analysis,
the only possible form for the energy spectrum function is the
-5/3 spectrum. Experimental evidence has accumulated that
supports it. Until now, such a power-law decay was considered a
specific treat of the nonlinear interaction overlooking
turbulence dynamics. We show here that this picture is also
present in the linear interaction relevant to three-dimensional
stable perturbation waves. Through extensive computation of the
transient life of these waves in typical shear flows, we observe
that the energy they own when, out of the transient phase, enter
the final exponential decay shows a spectrum very close to the
-5/3 spectrum. Moreover, also the observation times show a
similar scaling.

To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2011.DFD.A11.7